Flashback Friday: Why I Didn't Tell (Trigger Warning)

A word of explanation and warning. Since I first disclosed my status as a survivor of childhood sexual abuse at the end of March of this year, I have spent many sleepless nights and many waking hours consumed by a tsunami of flashbacks to specific incidents of the abuse that have left me feeling like I was drowning. With each successive flashback they feel as if they have been piling up in my mind, heart, and soul in a way that is threatening to consume me. When the flashbacks hit it is not me remembering the abuse, it is me reliving the abuse. All of my senses are transported back to that time. I am not a thirty-six year old man; I am a three year old toddler, a six year old little boy, or whatever age I was from the ages of three to twelve during which the abuse occurred. I need to get these flashbacks out in order to be able to detach and see these events through my adult eyes so that I can begin to heal. The only way I know how to do that is to tell the stories. If you are a fellow survivor, these Flashback Friday posts are likely to be triggers. If you are a supporter, please know that what you read on Fridays will likely be extremely disturbing. If for either reason you choose not to continue reading, I understand. If you choose to continue reading beyond the image below, thank you for validating my experience by listening to my truth.

When I was about five years old there was an assembly at my school all about stranger danger and bad touching and what to do if someone tried to touch you in bad ways. They told us it was wrong and that we should tell someone. I came home from school with my mind racing. I knew that I hated the things my stepfather and others had been doing to me for the last couple of years, but until that assembly I didn't know it was bad. I didn't know that I could tell and it might stop.

Later that night, my stepfather came into my room. My little brother and my mom were in my parents' bedroom and my stepfather said she went to sleep because her head hurt. He told me to follow him into the bathroom because it was bath time. I knew what he really wanted and, empowered by the assembly at school, told him no. I told him what he does to me is bad and that if he doesn't stop then I am going to tell.

The next thing I knew his hand was on my chest lifting me into the air and slamming me down hard on my bed. His face was red and his eyes were bugging out of his head. He leaned down until his face was touching mine and told me that what he does to me is his business and no one else's and that if I tell anyone that I'll be dead in the ground next to my father. With that he ripped my pants off and thrust himself into me in one painful shove. As I opened my mouth to scream he grabbed one of my pillows and pressed it hard over my face. I was in agony. Everything hurt. My body was sore from being slammed on the bed. My butt hurt from the assault he was doing to me. My lungs burned from not getting any air. I was thrashing around on the bed trying desperately to breathe.

I woke up the next morning in my bed in my pajamas with my entire body hurting and my voice raspy. My mom thought I had a sore throat. For years that night served to keep me quiet. I had no doubt that my stepfather meant every word and would kill me if I told anyone what he was doing to me almost every night. His reign of terror and sodomy and hate lived on to fight another day.

Inner Child: I Am He And He Is Me

Within the context of my personal development work with The ManKind Project over the past few months, and my growing connection to Adult Children of Alcoholics or Other Dysfunctional Families, I have encountered a lot of talk and exercises around connecting with my inner child. The idea is that in healing the part of ourselves that was wounded as a child, we are able to break the patterns that keep us from having the kind of life we want in the present. This kind of inner child work makes sense to me on an intellectual level; the majority of the trauma that is negatively impacting me as an adult took place when I was a sexually abused child.

I've written before that for over thirty years I did my best to repress and deny my childhood sexual abuse. Even though it was impossible to really ignore nearly a decade of abuse at the hands of my stepfather and his friends, I did my best to not remember. Until very recently, I was unconsciously using my inner child work as a new method of repressing and denying the memories of my abuse. When I sat in MKP or ACA and talked about my inner child; the words I used were he and him. I talked about my inner child like he was a being wholly separate from myself. He was the one who spent a decade as someone's live in sex toy. He was the one who was abandoned and abused.

That started to change when I started writing this blog. I couldn't share my experiences with anyone if I didn't claim them as mine. A slow realization has dawned over the past couple of weeks in relation to my inner child. He is not separate from me. I am he and he is me. I am the one who was abandoned by my father and mother. I am the one who was raped by my stepfather and his buddies from the ages of three to nearly twelve. I am the one who was broken. I am the one with grade A abandonment and trust issues. I am the one with the black dog of depression hanging over my head tempting me with an easy way out of having to deal with the pain.

But I have to deal with it. My inner child is me, not he. If I am ever going to heal, if I am ever going to be the man that I want to be, then I am going to have to own my past and own my memories. No more repressing or denying what happened to me. No more passing the buck to a fictional "other". The little boy I once was is a part of me and the only way to heal him is to heal myself. I am frustrated and sad and angry and resigned to the reality that there is no easy fix. There are too many scars, there is too much pain, there is too much baggage that I carry as a result of my childhood sexual abuse for me to recover or heal from it as quickly as I wish I could. There is a long road ahead of me to heal that part of me that was broken. All I can do is lift my lantern to light my way in the shadows, grab my teddy bear for comfort when things get scary, and put one foot in front of the other every day until my past no longer controls my present or my future...

A Way Out, But Not THE Way Out...

Everyone's pain is different. I can't begin to know exactly what Linkin Park front man Chester Bennington's pain was when he made the choice to take his own life yesterday. I do know a little bit of his story though, and a lot of his music, and I know that one thing we had in common was both being survivors of childhood sexual abuse. Chester was pretty open about it in interviews and it came through in a lot of subtle ways in his songs. I have been sitting with a lot of pain since news of Chester's suicide reached me yesterday. I had a really hard time holding it together at work. I wanted to run home and turn his music up as loud as my speakers could handle and scream along with him.

When I was twenty years old, I let my pain wash over me so strong that I was pulled away by the riptide and carried under. I did my best to take what felt like the only way out. I failed and the thought of taking my own life has been barely a whisper ever since. Until now. Now that voice is screaming in my head. Disclosing my abuse. The nightmares. The flashbacks. The panic attacks. The pain. The rage. The shame. FUCK!!! For the first time in nearly twenty years that voice is back screaming in my head that there is an easier way out of all of this pain then doing all of this work and ripping open all of these old wounds. That voice is so fucking soothing and seductive. Chester's suicide seems to be serving as a reminder to a dark part of myself that death is a way out.

Suicide is a way out, but it is not THE way out. There has to be a way to process all of this trauma and pain and shit and come out the other side. There has to be a way to heal and be happy. I have to believe, I CHOOSE to believe that there is a better way out of this pain then to end any chance at a happy life. My heart breaks for Chester and his pain. My heart breaks for the pain of every childhood sexual abuse survivor who has to carry the weight of the memories that threaten to overwhelm us. My heart breaks, but it still beats. Where there is life there is hope. Where there is hope there can be found support. If you were affected by Chester Bennington's suicide or by your abuse or by anything in life that is leading you to think that taking your life is the only way out then please hear me. There is hope. There is support. You are not alone. It will get better. As much as the past few days have awoken the black dog of depression in my life, I have found too much love and support on my journey these past few months to follow Chester's lead. Nobody can save me but myself. I need to make the choice to seek support, to accept the outstretched hands I once slapped away, to look for the little moments of joy, to live, to THRIVE.

Trust?

Trust. What an alien sounding word. Until a few months ago, I really didn't know what it meant to trust someone. I learned at a very young age that trusting people only leads to pain. I trusted my parents to keep me safe and yet I endured a childhood of horrific sexual abuse. I was taught to trust the adults my parents said were safe. The men my stepfather called his friends were no safer than he was. Why the hell would I ever trust anyone after the endless string of betrayals in my life?

If you read yesterday's post, then you know that something changed in my life this year. You know about ManKind Project and the group of men who made me believe that maybe, just maybe, some people could be trusted. What I didn't tell you yesterday is that last week one of those men violated that trust and sent my world into a tailspin. I went to group last night and confronted him using the tools of MKP to try to clear the air. The burning anger that simmered beneath the surface for me for a week has dissipated thanks to that process. The anger is gone, but the pain remains. The doubt remains. I was asked if I could trust this man enough to sit with him every week. I was asked by this man if I could forgive him. The only response I could give was I don't know.

When it comes to trust I am still an infant. Even though the men in my MKP group have nearly all earned a trust I never thought I had to give, it is still new and raw. What this man did to violate that trust has left me wondering if perhaps I was right before and that trust isn't worth it. Before, there's a telling word. Not trusting is an old pattern for me. My work here in attempting to heal from my childhood sexual abuse and my work in MKP to become a man I can be proud of means becoming someone new and not holding on to who I was. Yes this man violated my trust and hurt me deeply, but there are a dozen other men in this group who have and continue to honor my trust in them and who seem to trust me in return. I am learning that trust can open doors as well as open wounds.

Will I be able to trust this man again? Only time and space will reveal the answer to that question. As for forgiveness, that's a hell of a question best saved for another time...

The ManKind Project: A Light In The Darkness

I never thought I would ever look forward to Mondays, but ever since I joined a ManKind Project I-Group that meets every Monday night it is now my favorite day of the week. I've shared a couple of times here on this blog that it was at a ManKind Project New Warrior Training Adventure weekend that I first disclosed my childhood sexual abuse at the hands of my stepfather and his friends. That has gotten some people asking about MKP so I thought I would share the impact that this brotherhood has continued to have on my life and my recovery since I joined in February of this year.

When I joined MKP I was a boy trying desperately to fool people into thinking I was a man. I hated my life. I couldn't even look at myself in the mirror without feeling a burning hatred for my own reflection. With all of the guilt and shame and rage and despair from my childhood locked away inside of me, it was like a cancer that was killing me from the inside out. MKP had been on my radar for a few years and I had made half-hearted attempts at reaching out in the past, but by the time this year came around I decided I needed to do something. Something needed to change. They say that change only comes when it hurts too much to allow things to stay the way they are. I am a living example of the truth in that statement.

So February of this year came around and I decided to reach out and ask for help. A man from the local MKP I-Group responded and invited me to a weekly Monday meeting. I went into this meeting not being able to trust anyone. My childhood had robbed me of that ability. I never really let anyone get close even though I gave the appearance of doing so. I always kept people at arms length. To this day I can't really put into words how they did it, but over the course of the next month this group of a dozen or so men made it past my defenses. Not only did I like them, I realized upon receiving their invitation to take it to the next level by attending the NWTA that I actually trusted them. It was such an odd feeling, but it gave me hope. I trusted these men and they told me this experience would make a difference in my life. Understatement.

Putting this newfound trust to the test, I attended my MKP NWTA this past March and began to transform my life. Over the past few months a swift, yet gradual, series of changes have been sweeping through my life. For the first time I feel like I am in the driver's seat. I am awake. I am setting boundaries in my life. I am shining a light on my shadows. I am facing my past head on so that I can finally see myself as a man with a future. These men in my Monday night group are leading by example and mentoring me to be the kind of man I never thought I could be. The tools that I am learning from The ManKind Project are helping me to create a life I am starting to be proud of. The best part of it all is that with everything I have been through, I can finally look the man in the mirror in the eye and smile...

Flashback Friday: Two of a Kind (Trigger Warning)

A word of explanation and warning. Since I first disclosed my status as a survivor of childhood sexual abuse at the end of March of this year, I have spent many sleepless nights and many waking hours consumed by a tsunami of flashbacks to specific incidents of the abuse that have left me feeling like I was drowning. With each successive flashback they feel as if they have been piling up in my mind, heart, and soul in a way that is threatening to consume me. When the flashbacks hit it is not me remembering the abuse, it is me reliving the abuse. All of my senses are transported back to that time. I am not a thirty-six year old man; I am a three year old toddler, a six year old little boy, or whatever age I was from the ages of three to twelve during which the abuse occurred. I need to get these flashbacks out in order to be able to detach and see these events through my adult eyes so that I can begin to heal. The only way I know how to do that is to tell the stories. If you are a fellow survivor, these Flashback Friday posts are likely to be triggers. If you are a supporter, please know that what you read on Fridays will likely be extremely disturbing. If for either reason you choose not to continue reading, I understand. If you choose to continue reading beyond the image below, thank you for validating my experience by listening to my truth.

Most of my flashbacks have not been hitting me in any kind of chronological order, but the one I want to share this week I believe happened only a matter of months after my stepfather sexually abused me for the first time. This is also the first flashback where the memory of being abused by someone else in addition to my stepfather came up.

I was still three years old. The house I lived in was my mother, her boyfriend (later my stepfather), me, my little brother, my stepfather's friend "P" and his son "K". My mom was getting ready to take my little brother to a doctor's appointment and I was supposed to go. "K" and I were playing. He was a couple of years older than me, but he was always nice and played with me. I begged my mom to let me stay so I could keep playing. She asked my stepfather and "P" if if was okay and they shot each other a look and said okay.

The instant my mom's car pulled away, my stepfather shot me a look that scared me enough to run out into the front yard hoping to catch her but she was gone. I thought I would be safe with "P" in the house. I thought my stepfather couldn't possibly do what he did to me again with another adult in the house. I was wrong. He yelled at me to get in the house and as soon as the door was closed he picked me up and carried me toward his bedroom. "P" was already there stripping out of his clothes with his son "K" already naked on the bed crying. My stepfather ripped my clothes off of my three year old body and threw me onto the bed across from "K". I felt his hands around my ankles as he pulled me backwards so that I was draped face down across the side of the bed as "P" did the same to his son. The instant I saw "P" force himself into his son, I felt my stepfather once more tear his way into my small behind. My eyes locked with "K" and we just stared blankly into each others' eyes as our fathers raped us like we were sex toys and not their sons. Suddenly my stepfather yanked his adult member from me as "P" did from his son. Then they switched sides and suddenly I was watching my stepfather rape "K" while "P" forced his even larger adult member into my small three year old anus. All I could do was scream. My stepfather just started laughing and "P" clamped his hand across my mouth and started thrusting harder. I'm pretty sure I blacked out because the flashback ends with me waking up in my bed and my mom asking if I had tired myself out having a good time while she was gone.

My stepfather and his friend "P" it turned out were two of a kind. I learned very quickly to do whatever I could to go with my mom whenever she left the house. Not that that did much to protect me for the next ten years...

Always Angry

 

There is a scene in the first Avengers movie that is iconic for me. The superheroes are facing down an alien army intent on destroying New York and Captain America turns to Dr. Banner and tells him it might be a good time to get angry. He looks back at Cap and tells him his secret is that he's always angry before he transforms into the Incredible Hulk and roars off into the sky to tear apart the approaching alien hoard.

"That's my secret Captain. I'm always angry." Boy can I relate to that statement. I had a conversation with a friend last night who brought up the subject of forgiveness as a potential aspect of my journey to heal from my childhood sexual abuse. He suggested that I needed to forgive my abuser and to forgive God. When he said that everything went green, er, red. The thought of ever forgiving the monster who raped my childhood or the god who ignored my prayers and pleas for help set off a rage in me that erupted all over my friend. I was cursing my stepfather and cursing god and damning them both straight to hell. And you know what? It felt really damn good.

Anger has been my constant companion for as far back as I can remember. In many ways, I credit my anger for driving me and keeping me going all of these years. It is my anger at my stepfather, his friends, my mother, and everyone else who turned a blind eye to the rape and suffering of a little boy that is giving me the courage to finally share my story out loud so that I and others might heal from it. I have kept this secret for over thirty years and it was never mine to keep. It is their dirty little secret, not mine. Fuck them! I'm not keeping it for them anymore!!!

Is it possible that someday my journey to heal might take me to a place of forgiveness? Maybe. But in the meantime, my anger over my stolen innocence and abandonment still serves me well. My anger gives me the strength to finally break the silence and roar my truth at the heavens for all to hear. So that's the secret behind this blog; I'm always angry. I'm just done being angry at myself and directing it instead at the ones who deserve it.

Flashback Friday: How It All Started (Trigger Warning)

A word of explanation and warning. Since I first disclosed my status as a survivor of childhood sexual abuse at the end of March of this year, I have spent many sleepless nights and many waking hours consumed by a tsunami of flashbacks to specific incidents of the abuse that have left me feeling like I was drowning. With each successive flashback they feel as if they have been piling up in my mind, heart, and soul in a way that is threatening to consume me. When the flashbacks hit it is not me remembering the abuse, it is me reliving the abuse. All of my senses are transported back to that time. I am not a thirty-six year old man; I am a three year old toddler, a six year old little boy, or whatever age I was from the ages of three to twelve during which the abuse occurred. I need to get these flashbacks out in order to be able to detach and see these events through my adult eyes so that I can begin to heal. The only way I know how to do that is to tell the stories. If you are a fellow survivor, these Flashback Friday posts are likely to be triggers. If you are a supporter, please know that what you read on Fridays will likely be extremely disturbing. If for either reason you choose not to continue reading, I understand. If you choose to continue reading beyond the image below, thank you for validating my experience by listening to my truth.

That day in October of 1983 started out as the best day of my life and my earliest memory. I was three years old when I became a big brother. The morning started out with me getting to lay eyes on my little brother for the first time. He was born prematurely and was so little that I wasn't allowed to hold him or touch him yet, but I could see him. It made me so happy. We were going to have so much fun playing together. There was so much I was going to teach him about the world. My mother had been diagnosed with cancer during her pregnancy so she and my baby brother had to stay in the hospital for a while.

I spent some of my time at my mom's sister's house, but a lot of time was spent with my mom's then boyfriend who later became her husband. The entire truck ride home from the hospital I was excited and chatting away. My stepfather seemed preoccupied and distant, but I didn't really understand that at the time. It must have been late when we got home because as soon as we walked into the house he said it was time to get ready for bed. I thought he was going to start the water for my bath, but instead he started to take his clothes off when we got to the bathroom. I was confused, was he taking a bath first? He glared at me and told me to get my clothes off. He was tired and wanted to get to bed. He didn't want to waste time on my bath. We were just going to take a shower and go to bed. I was confused. I had never taken a shower before, but something in his voice told me not to argue.

In a few minutes I was standing naked in the tub shivering because it was cold in the house. My stepfather got in the tub next to me leaving our naked bodies very close together. I jumped when he turned on the water and it came spraying down on my head. He handed me a bar of soap and then grabbed one himself and told me to do what he did as he started to lather up his body. He seemed to spend a lot of time lathering up his penis. It started to get bigger until it looked big and red and angry. All I could do was stare at it. He looked down at me staring at his growing erection and sneered at me in disgust. "What a surprise," he said. "You're the son of a whore who's not going to be putting out for a while. Maybe it's time to make you one too!" With that he reached down and lifted my small three year old body into the air. The next thing I felt was like fire shooting up my butt as he rammed the full length of his hard adult member into my three year old anus. Everything went white. For a moment my mouth opened in a silent scream and then suddenly I began to cry and scream. It hurts! Please stop! What are you doing! Ow! Ow!! OW!!! It didn't matter how much I cried or begged, he just kept slamming into me over and over again until he let out a loud grunt and stopped for a moment with his pelvis pressed up tight against my small behind. He pulled me off of him with a wet sucking sound and then set me down on the tub floor where I collapsed into a ball. He just rinsed himself off and climbed out of the shower leaving me on the floor with the water pouring down on my naked shivering body as the water spiraled down the drain stained red with the blood trickling out of my torn anus.

At this point, the flashback always ends and I find myself once more a thirty-six year old man but one who is still shivering and crying and begging for it to stop...

Independence Day

On the 4th of July in the United States we celebrate Independence Day. Over time the anniversary of the country's freedom from British rule came to symbolize the freedoms that some, but not all, Americans enjoy. With this being the first Independence Day since my public disclosure of my status as a survivor of childhood sexual abuse my mind is drawn to the day that I consider to be MY Independence Day, the day I escaped from my childhood home.

It was the summer of 1997 when my path to freedom began. I was sixteen going on seventeen when my mother got a little overzealous in cleaning my room one day while I was out with friends. She found the issue of Playgirl magazine that I had hidden under my mattress. Is there some law that says all teenage boys must hide their nudie magazines under their mattress for their mother to find? Something tells me that finding a magazine full of nude men was not what my mother was expecting to find when she went snooping. When I got home she confronted me with the magazine and angrily stated that she didn't know what to do about me and that she was going to discuss the situation with my stepfather. My blood went cold.

For those of you just joining my blog my stepfather was the man who sexually abused me, along with his friends, from the time I was three years old until almost my twelfth birthday. It had been four years since the last time my stepfather sexually assaulted me and now my mother wanted to tell that man that she thought I was gay. My mind was racing. Would he think that meant I liked what he did to me and allowed his friends to do to me? Would he start again? Was the nightmare I thought was over going to begin again? I won't let him. I won't let him touch me again. I won't let him rape me again. I won't. I won't. I WON'T!!!

While my mom locked herself in her room to once again bury her head in the sand for the millionth time, I ran to my room and shoved a bunch of clothes into a bag and headed out the front door. I called the only person I could think of who might help me, my step-sister, and she came and got me. She helped me get on my feet, get my emancipation, finish high school, and make it to adulthood finally free of my stepfather and the threat of renewed sexual abuse. Finally I was safe. I was independent. I was free. Physically at least. The journey to free my heart, mind, and soul from the aftereffects of my childhood sexual abuse continues...

The Healing Power of Music

It is hard to describe what it was like when the memories I tried so hard to push down came screaming back into my head after I finally told someone out loud that I was a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. Whether my eyes were opened or closed, whether I was asleep or awake, there was no sanctuary from the fury with which my childhood trauma came to life again after so many years. In flashbacks, in nightmares, in panic attacks; the memories were overwhelming for months. I felt like I was drowning in a sea of horror. Worse yet, I felt more alone than I ever had in my life. I felt like no one could possibly understand what I was experiencing. I had men in my life through The ManKind Project who cared and were doing their best to help me process what I was going through, but there was still a voice in my head telling me that I was some kind of freak going through something no one could understand. Then I stumbled upon this video on YouTube. A talented young man took the time to get to know a man who was a childhood sexual abuse survivor, listened to his story, put his words to music, and wrote this song. Click play. Listen to the words and the way his heart breaks as he sings them. When I did, I knew that I was not alone, that someone else had felt the weight of memories of childhood sexual abuse, that someone understood this pain. It was the first of many gentle ways the universe let me know that I was on a path that had been trod by men before me and would be trod by men after me. That fact brings me hope and profound sadness all at once. So does this song...